Print Solutions Magazine

Cliff Shellhase, a retired distributor and now a published author, says his first book “Be Somebody! Be Somebody! For God’s Sake, Be Somebody!” is not a spiritual work. “No, it’s not, though I guess it depends on how you read the title,” he says with a chuckle.

Shellhase, a DMIA member since 1969 and husband of former DMIA President Nora Shellhase (1995-96), says his book that lists what he believes to be the key factors of success in life and in sales is really meant to be inspirational. “I came from very little and received very much in my life, and I wanted to impart to others what took me a long time to learn,” he says.

Shellhase began his career more than 50 years ago at a water cooler company in Glen Riddle, Pa., where one of his mentors and then company President Orville Morrison “took me by the boot straps and introduced me to what business was really like,” he says. He later made the move from purchasing to sales and eventually co-founded Delaware Valley Business Forms Inc. with his partner, the late Ed Miersch. During the course of his career, Shellhase crossed paths in 1981 at a National Business Forms Association conference with Nora, who was then the head of Emerald Solutions In Print Inc., Edison, N.J. “I had just lost my wife and she had just divorced her husband. We fell in love. A year and a half later, we were married and we owe it all to DMIA,” he says.

While Shellhase worked on his book, Nora—to whom the book is dedicated—battled cancer. It is a battle that she is still fighting by undergoing chemotherapy. “She’s hanging tough. She’s a tough, little Irish lass,” he says. “You can tell that I’m just a little bit proud of her.”

Shellhase admits that he pushed himself to finish his book in one year to take advantage of publisher Author House’s offer of 30 free copies if he completed the work in that time.

The book’s forward, written by DMIA Executive Vice President Peter L. Colaianni, CAE, bestows praise on Shellhase and offers encouragement to the reader. “Each of us wants to reach our full potential,” Colaianni wrote. “Each of us wants to stretch our abilities as we grasp the next rung of ladder. Each of us wants to ‘be somebody.’ Cliff Shellhase achieved his full potential, stretched his abilities, and climbed the ladder and became somebody.”

The book serves as a motivational treatise filled with a mix of anecdotes, fables and quotes sampled from an array of sources, including Yogi Berra and Henry David Thoreau.

Though Shellhase’s words of wisdom could just as easily apply to other aspects of life besides sales, he offers practical advice on the art of salesmanship. He gives instruction on everything from how to establish a relationship with a new client by inviting them to your office or a plant facility to what to tell an end user when they ask that pesky question of how much your services cost. There is even a chapter on proper letter writing. Each section encourages the virtues of confidence and perseverance.

Shellhase’s perseverance got him, at last count, nine book reviews in several newspapers. A particular stand-out was a review that appeared in the Trenton Times. The reviewer wrote in the Dec. 18, 2005 edition of the newspaper that Shellhase’s book was “motivational in spirit….and darned if his enthusiasm isn’t contagious and his book full of what appears to be sound advice about getting and keeping customers.” This review appeared only after Shellhase contacted the paper nearly half-a-dozen times in one year to very politely ask for a book review.

Shellhase is now doing book signings and library presentations. At each venue, he shows that although retired, he is the eternal salesman. “At the presentations, I tell them I’m not there to sell the book to them, but I’m there to encourage them to buy it,” he says with a chuckle.

—LaShell Stratton